“The Hip-Hop Nutcracker”

Tchaikovsky goes all “Krush Groove” in this ’80s-minded riff on the holiday favorite. The touring show features the pioneering rapper Kurtis Blow (“The Breaks”) as guest MC, plus modern dancers choreographed by director Jennifer Weber of Brooklyn’s Decadancetheatre. JAMES HEBERT

San Diego Symphony presents “Mozart’s Requiem”

Markus Stenz, chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012 and principal guest conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2015, returns this weekend to conduct the San Diego Symphony in Mozart’s final masterpiece, his Requiem. Stenz, who last season led the San Diego orchestra in Beethoven’s Fifth, will be joined by soprano Jessica Rivera, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, tenor Colin Balzer, bass Adam Lau and the San Diego Master Chorale. MICHAEL JAMES ROCHA

1 p.m. Sunday. Along Main Street from El Cajon Boulevard and ending at First Street in downtown El Cajon. mothergooseparade.org

More than 100 parade entries from across the country will include floats, marching bands, drill teams, clowns, equestrians and other guests, including Santa, who will ride in on his sleigh to close the parade. LISA DEADERICK

“All Is Calm” is a musical retelling of a scene during World War I when “men put down their guns and left the protection of trenches to meet their enemies in ‘no man’s land’” to share rum, chocolate and tobacco and sing songs. At the production’s helm are music director Juan Acosta and stage director Jacob Bruce. “All Is Calm” is written by Peter Rothstein, with musical arrangements by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach. All proceeds benefit the Veterans Museum. MICHAEL JAMES ROCHA

“Spaces From Yesterday”

Amy Ho is an artist who worked as an art teacher at San Quentin State Prison and learned a lot from her students. In “Spaces From Yesterday,” she collaborated with her students to create pieces that represent significant places in each inmate’s life from before they were incarcerated. In her conversations with the students, she learned about the ways in which they used their memories of these places to hold on to their ties to the world outside the prison walls. LISA DEADERICK

Not since 2013 has San Diego hosted a large-scale holiday lights attraction — the Holiday of Lights at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. After nearly two decades, that popular drive-through holiday display went dark to make way for a $5 million racetrack-widening project. Now families can start a new tradition at San Diego’s first Global Winter Wonderland. Seventeen acres at SDCCU Stadium (formerly Qualcomm Stadium) will be transformed into a land of enchantment Sunday with millions of LED lights and 100 handcrafted lanterns of all shapes and sizes. “Holidays Around the World” is the theme of the inaugural event, which runs through Jan. 7. At least 16 large-scale structures will transport visitors to countries from around the globe — including Germany, Italy, Mexico, China, Thailand, England, France and India, each featuring a distinctive landmark like the Taj Mahal, London Bridge and Eiffel Tower. CAROLINA GUSMAN

Good luck and unexpected windfalls didn’t transform Alex Woodard’s life for the better in 2008. But bad luck and unexpected pitfalls did lead to a positive transformation for this former child actor, whose credits included “The Love Boat” and a Skippy peanut butter commercial with former “Mickey Mouse Club” TV star Annette Funicello. The same bad luck led to three editions of Woodard’s book, “For the Sender,” and accompanying albums of songs. He’ll perform a concert version of the third, “For the Sender — Love Letters From Vietnam,” Saturday at Poway Center for the Performing Arts. GEORGE VARGA

Brand X, with Pet Shark

Devoted music fans may know Brand X — which reunited in 2016 after a 17-year hiatus — as the high-velocity English jazz-rock fusion band Phil Collins drummed in when not playing in Genesis in the 1970s. But there are some things that surprise even the five members of Brand X, who were once seen as England’s answer to such pioneering American fusion bands as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report and Return to Forever. And the biggest surprise of all is that Brand X is now on the road again, after nearly two decades of inactivity. “How would I have reacted if, 10 years ago, someone told me we would get back together in 2016 and be touring in 2017? I would have been really skeptical,” admitted bassist Percy Jones, who performs with Brand X on Saturday at The Merrow in Hillcrest as part of a 12-city West Coast tour. GEORGE VARGA

Globe for All’s “Twelfth Night”

Various community locations around the region, through Sunday. Culminates in two, low-cost public performances, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday in the Old Globe’s Festival Rehearsal Room, Balboa Park. $10-$15 for public performances at Globe. (619) 234-5623 or theoldglobe.org

The fourth edition of the Old Globe Theatre’s Globe for All tour — which takes Shakespeare to a host of unconventional venues — has rolled out the comic favorite “Twelfth Night.” But this slimmed-down version of the play throws in some twists: The shipwrecked twins Viola and Sebastian are Mexican immigrants, and the mysterious land of Illyria — where the story of romance and mistaken identity unfolds — is a posh U.S. border resort. The setting makes for some rich characters, and while the experience is calibrated for those who might never have seen Shakespeare (or a play) performed, the show — which has public performances at the Globe next Sunday — still serves up the Bard with plenty of heart. JAMES HEBERT

There are a whole lot of takes on the “Scrooge” story out there, and a whole host of those pesky Dickensian ghosts. The Welk goes the musical route with this 1994 adaptation, which boasts a score by the Broadway and Hollywood heavyweights Alan Menken and Lynn Ahrens. Larry Raben directs the show — the last at the Escondido theater before the place is closed for renovations. JAMES HEBERT

“Romeo and Juliet”

It sounds as if it could be some kind of mystical mantra for a theatrical sound designer: Listen to the crickets. In fact, it is literally what Melanie Chen Cole found herself doing late one night not long ago at the lip of a canyon in Mira Mesa, as she was working up ideas for the soundscape of La Jolla Playhouse’s world-premiere work “At the Old Place.” “I’m really focused on, How do I create something that’s the most real?” Cole has answered variations on that question in a whole lot of different ways starting in 2010, when she launched her sound-design career at Hillcrest’s Ion Theatre while still a UC San Diego undergraduate. Since then, she has designed sound for 86 theater and dance productions — including 17 shows in 2017 alone. Her latest project is the Old Globe/University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Program production of “Romeo and Juliet,” which runs through this week at the Globe’s arena-style White Theatre. That show features variations on hip-hop, including needle-drops of classic tracks by Michael Jackson and the Beastie Boys. But Cole also composed music for a scene in which the fated lovers first meet. JAMES HEBERT